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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Okay,
so I have a confession to make before we go ahead with this week's
edition of the Saturday Smorgasbord, as well as the final day of
August 2013. My god, it's been a long month. Thank goodness it is
finally over.

Okay,
here's my confession. I am a slob.

Don't
misunderstand me though. I am not what I would consider to be one of
those people you might see featured on an episode of “Hoarders”.
I do not have piles of decomposing produce or jugs of bodily fluids
covering my floor, nor do I have so much stuff in my place that it is
considered to be a safety hazard. But I will say that as far back as
I can remember, I've always been kind of a messy person. Even as I
look around at my desk, it's absolutely covered with random things.
I have documents that I just printed off from my computer, I have
several books spread out. I think somewhere underneath all of the
clutter, I have my iPod charging and adding the songs that I just
purchased onto it. And, as far as writing implements go, I never
need worry about finding one because I have literally sixty different
coloured gel pens scattered all over my desk.

Now,
some people might read that very description and cringe in terror
over it. How in the world could I ever be able to work under
conditions like that? How could I even find anything at my desk, let
alone in my entire living space?

Well,
I guess it's because it's what I have grown up with and am absolutely
used to. And I think a part of it comes from the fact that I have
never been a homeowner, and thus have never had a place that I can
truly call my own. I mean, granted, I wasn't the person who
purposely smashed holes in the walls, or painted my room some obscene
colour like chartreuse, burnt orange, or blood red. But I guess I
had the attitude that because it wasn't really our place, I could be
as messy as I wanted.

(Keeping
in mind that this is coming from the mindset of someone who was seven
years old and whose idols included four gigantic turtles who scarfed
down pizza and fought battles against a warthog, a rhinoceros, and a
talking brain.)

Of
course, my mind has matured over those years, and I no longer have
that opinion. Yet, somehow the messy gremlins that I blamed for
making my room untidy have followed me into adulthood. I guess it's
just one of those hard habits to break. Maybe one day when I
actually have a place that is truly mine and can do with whatever I
wish with, I'll find it within myself to implant the Danny Tanner
cleaning gene inside of me and keep my home so immaculate you could
find photos of it within a home decorating magazine.

Or,
at the very least, I'd be happy if I could take pictures of it and
post them on Facebook.

But
you know something? I always seem to find myself feeling more
comfortable when things are somewhat in disarray. I am certainly not
one of those people who have to have everything in its own place, and
who flips out if even the slightest thing gets moved (though if you
are, that's perfectly okay too). I actually feel really
uncomfortable if I am in someone's house and it looks like a
furniture showroom at The Brick. I would be the one to purposely
take a cup of coffee and spill it over the couch cushions so that it
would look more lived in!

I
know. It sounds strange, right? But when you consider that this is
the way that I grew up...getting used to rooms with a little bit of
clutter here and there, it may make my argument much clearer.

And,
I'll admit that in a lot of cases, the clutter doesn't prevent me
from finding things. Even though my teenage bedroom often looked as
if a bomb went off inside of it, I knew where everything was, and how
I could find it. Everyone else who dared venture inside of it were
lucky if they could even find the closet door.

In
fact, I bet that if I had given everyone a list of...oh, say...eight
objects in my bedroom, and gave them a time limit to search through
every nook and cranny and under every single pile of debris in the
area, I wouldn't be too shocked to see only half of the items
found...if that.

Well,
that happens to be the premise behind today's topic. We're going to
be looking at a children's television game show that aired during the
late 1980s that had that very situation. You had two teams of
children racing through a life-size version of a house, and the
object was to go through each room to find objects by deciphering
clues detailing where their whereabouts were. Those who succeeded
would win a bounty of prizes that could make any child's room a fun
zone.

Have
you ever heard of the television show “Finders Keepers”? That
was the name of the game show that we will be looking at today. And
it's actually a show that I only ended up hearing of long after it
aired on television. The show ran for two seasons, between November
2, 1987 and March 10, 1989. The first season was broadcast on
Nickelodeon and was hosted by “Land of the Lost” star Wesley
Eure, and the second season was hosted by Larry Toeffler in
syndication.

I
suppose that the best way that I could use to describe the type of
show that “Finders Keepers” was could be like if you took the
game show “Fun House” and blended it with “Where's Waldo”.
If you're a fan of those hidden object games, then “Finders
Keepers” is the game for you.

The
game started the same each time. We met the two teams, made up of
contestants that were between the ages of eight and fourteen, and the
host explained the rules of the game before they proceeded to round
one.

Okay,
so the first round (and second round) began like this. The teams
would be shown a mural or a picture that may look something similar
to this one below.

Now
at first, it might seem like a normal drawing. But look closer.
There are some hidden images within the main picture.

The
host would read out the description of a hidden object within the
picture, and it was the team's job to point out where the item was
hidden. If they found the correct image, they would win twenty-five
dollars for their team. Come on, let's play a round right here.

QUESTION
#1: They can be found in schools and in the seafood section.

Can
you find the item?

Yes,
that's correct. The answer is a fish, and you can see it circled
inside this picture.

Or,
how about another one?

QUESTION
#2: _______________ Dundee.

Can
you find the item?

Yes,
if you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see an upside-down
crocodile hanging out near the ground.

(Or
is it an alligator? You know what, I'll let you decide.)

At
any rate, each picture usually had six hidden objects within them, so
if a team had a clean sweep, they could win a total of one hundred
and fifty dollars each round (which back in the late 1980s could buy
an average of a hundred and ten comic books).

But
that was just part one of each round. What about part two?

Well,
this is where the “Fun House” reference comes into play. You
see, the set of “Finders Keepers” was built in such a way that it
looked like a gigantic play house (I'll be the first to admit that
had I watched this show when it originally aired, I would have loved
to go on it because I was a sucker for tree houses and play houses
back in those days). Depending on the season you watched, the rooms
of the house could be giant-sized versions of every day rooms (dens,
bedrooms, kitchens, etc), or they could be theme rooms (a pastry
shop, a laboratory, a school locker room, etc). Whatever the case,
the host would read a clue that described an object in that room.
Like, for instance...

Q:
I have all the numbers from one to twenty stamped on my face, but
its the direct center of me that you have to hit in order to score
the highest.

Of
course, you all might have guessed that the clue describes a
dartboard. The trick is that the contestant has to dig through the
room, locate a dartboard within the clutter, and bring it back to the
host before the thirty second time limit expired. If the contestant
found the item, they won fifty dollars for their team. But if time
ran out, the opposing team would get the money instead.

And,
don't think that the search for objects was going to be a cakewalk.
Sometimes bookshelves came apart. Sometimes light fixtures would
short out. Sometimes ceiling tiles would come loose and rain debris
over the contestant's head. You had to be quick AND dodge flying
objects. It could be quite challenging.

Don't
believe me? Let's watch an episode below!

You
get what I'm saying? It's fun, but intense!

In
the second round, the prize amounts were almost doubled. Teams could
earn $75 for the picture finding game, and $100 for the room search
game. At the end of two rounds, the team with the highest score
would earn the opportunity to go through the “Finders Keepers”
house for the chance to play the “Room-to-Room Romp”.

And,
what was the “Room-to-Room Romp”?

Well,
the winning team would have to go through all six rooms in the house.
They had to go through each room in the order that was given to them
by the host. The order was non-negotiable, and the contestants only
had 90 seconds to find all six items. The good news was that even if
the teams didn't find all of the items, they could still win prizes.
Even if they found one item, they would still be rewarded with a
small prize. The only thing is that the more items you found, the
better the prizes would be. Finding one item might net you a Nerf
gun. Finding four might get you a Nintendo Entertainment System.
Finding all six would win you a ten-speed mountain bike.

Oh
yeah...if you found four items, you'd keep the four prizes you won.

Hmmm...I
wonder if I could have been made to clean my bedroom more often if I
was given the option of winning prizes every time I found someone
else's item hidden away in my cluttered room?

Friday, August 30, 2013

Okay, so is August over
yet? Almost? Okay. I think I can get through these last two days.

I'll be honest with you.
August has completely sucked monkey balls. And, yes, I did just
utter the words “monkey balls” twice in this blog already.
That's how badly August sucked.

I know Green Day warbled
some song about waking them up when September ends, but as far as I
am concerned, I am really looking forward to the month of September.
After all, it can't be much worse than August was!

Especially since I have
some time off of work coming up in September...which is always a
welcome thing.

So, since I'm really
looking forward to September, I thought that I would feature a theme
that has September written all over it. A program that used to air
every September. A program that was kind of a double-edged sword of
sorts.

You see, this long-running
program had a great cause behind it. It helped raise money for
medical research and facilities necessary to help treat diseases
affecting muscle control and the nervous system, and it often had
some interesting entertainment coming out to perform in hopes that
people would be generous with their hearts and wallets that would aid
in finding a cure.

But here's where the
downside comes it. The show would always air during Labour Day
Weekend. And in Ontario, Canada, where I was born, raised, and
currently living in, Labour Day weekend meant the end of summer, and
the beginning of a new school year.

Yeah, it was official.
Every time we saw Jerry Lewis on television, we knew that it wouldn't
be long after that before the school bell rang for another year, and
we would be trapped in a classroom for six and a half hours each day.

Yes, today's blog topic is
all about The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon. Or, at least,
that was the name that the show went by for nearly fifty years.
After Jerry Lewis retired as host of the show in 2010, the show
changed its name to “The MDA Show of Strength”.

(And yes, I know in Canada, we add an extra U to the word labour, but for continuity's sake, we're going with the American spelling just for today.)

Now, currently, there are
a rotating group of hosts that run the event. Currently, the line-up
of stars who host the program are former Entertainment Tonight
hostess Jann Carl, current Entertainment Tonight hostess Nancy
O'Dell, and Days of our Lives actress Alison Sweeney. And currently
“The MDA Show of Strength” only lasts at most two hours in
length. This year, the program is airing on ABC this upcoming
September 1 for just two hours in length.

Which pales in comparison
to the near TWENTY-TWO hours that the telethon used to run prior to
2011. I don't know how the telethon worked in other time zones in
North America, but here in Ontario, the program would begin at
approximately nine in the evening on the night before Labour Day, and
run straight through until seven in the evening on Labour Day. After
the telethon concluded, the brand new season of “Wheel of Fortune”
would begin airing new episodes shortly after that.

And, I don't know how the
telethon worked in various cities and various affiliates, but I'll
explain how things worked in my neck of the woods. The telethon
would air on our CBS affiliate, which in my town comes from
Watertown, New York (WWNY-TV Cable 7), and while Jerry Lewis'
segments would air, we'd see telephone numbers to call in order to
pledge a donation towards a cure for muscular dystrophy. And after
about ninety minutes or so, the show would shift over to a local
affiliate, where we would see two hosts interviewing local heroes who
have raised money all year long for MDA, as well as the various
volunteers who were taking phone calls. On the affiliate I watched
the telethon on, our hosts were Mel Busler and Cindy Habeeb. It kind
of sparked a little bit of a betting game between members of my
family as we would all predict just how many times Cindy Habeeb would
change her outfit throughout the twenty-two hour long broadcast. I
don't ever remember winning, but it was a fun game to play.

But I bet you don't know
how those local cutaways originated on the telethon, do you? In
fact, I bet some of you don't know how the telethon began, do you?
Fear not? I've done all of my research for today, and I have all the
answers for you.

As far as official records
go, the very first Jerry Lewis Telethon was broadcast on the weekend
of September 4 and 5, 1966. But the true story is that the telethon
actually originated fourteen years earlier, in 1952. Back then,
Jerry Lewis began hosting mini-telethons to benefit the Muscular
Dystrophy Associations of America as a favour to a staff member who
had worked with Lewis and Dean Martin on the set of “The Colgate
Comedy Hour” who wanted awareness raised for the disease.
Throughout the 1950s, Lewis would host four hour long telethons in a
variety of locations in the New York City area, its affiliates
happily donating the time to broadcast the events.

By the mid-1960s, the
mini-telethons became such a success that MDAA thought about doing a
telethon that lasted an entire day. Jerry Lewis instantly agreed to
host the event.

Of course, organizers of
the event were left puzzled over when to host the telethon. After
all, it had to be at a time in which local affiliates could turn over
airtime for such an event. Eventually, it was decided that the only
time that the show could be broadcast was during the Labour Day
Weekend. And, initially, this worried people in New York City.
Labour Day Weekend was a long weekend, and it was expected that many
people would be away from their television sets to enjoy the final
weekend of summer. Many people expected the telethon to be a
complete failure, and New York City officials were even reluctant to
issue MDAA a fundraising permit to host the event. Luckily, MDAA got
that permit just in the nick of time. But the real test came on
September 4, 1966, when the inaugural Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day
Telethon aired on WNEW-TV, filming live from New York's Americana
Hotel.

Just to give you
perspective on how much money the telethon raised that first year,
consider this. The original tote board that the telethon used had
enough digits to display six numbers. Therefore, the highest the
board could display was $999,999.

So when the telethon ended
with just over one million dollars collected, Jerry Lewis actually
had to grab a bucket of paint and physically paint a number one in
front of the total!

(For reference, that first
year the telethon raised $1,002,114.)

It seemed as though Jerry
Lewis and MDA certainly proved everyone wrong. The following year,
the telethon raised even more money than the year before.
Celebrities came onto the show to offer their support for the cause
and singers would appear on the program to entertain the crowd. This
prompted other affiliates to show interest in telecasting the
telethon as well. By 1969, Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, and New
Bedford also began broadcasting the show. The groups of stations
that signed on to show the telethon were grouped under the name of
“The Love Network”, because all of them were joining together to
raise money for a common goal – the eradication of all muscular
dystrophy and its associated diseases and conditions.

TRIVIA:
Remember how I talked about the affiliate that I watched the
telethon on breaking into programming to showcase local heroes? That
tradition came about in 1968, when Rochester's WHEC network began the
tradition in between performances on the Jerry Lewis Telethon to
showcase local fundraising efforts. When it was revealed that the
Rochester affiliated had more donations pledged to that station than
any others within “The Love Network”, the decision was made for
other networks to follow suit.

The
1970s was a very huge decade for the telethon. At the beginning of
the year, San Francisco and Los Angeles had joined the growing number
of affiliates joining “The Love Network”, making the Jerry Lewis
MDA Labor Day Telethon a coast-to-coast effort. In 1973, the home
base for the telethon moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, and that same year,
the telethon broke a record, earning twelve million dollars. Once
again, Jerry Lewis had to paint a number one at the beginning of the
tote board because there wasn't enough room to incorporate all the
digits of the final total! By 1976, the telethon was simulcast on
213 television stations, effectively bringing the show to the entire
continental United States, all ten provinces in Canada, and some
areas of Mexico. How's that for a “Love Network”?

And
you have to give Jerry Lewis credit. For the first couple of decades
of the show, he stayed up the entire night to host the whole
telethon. Twenty one and a half hours entertaining the crowd,
announcing and chatting with celebrities, and accepting large
oversized cheques for thousands of dollars in support of MDA. This
tradition continued until 1983, when Jerry cut back his commitment to
sixteen hours so that he could have some rest (he had surgery the
previous year). Jerry would continue this tradition until health
problems in 1999 caused him to cut back his appearance time again,
this time only appearing at the first few hours of the telethon, and
at the conclusion of the telethon. This continued for the next
eleven years until 2010, when Jerry Lewis stepped down as host.

But
during the time in which Jerry Lewis was resting, he did have help as
a variety of co-hosts stepped in to relieve him. That's how Jann
Carl, Nancy O'Dell, and Alison Sweeney got involved with the current
MDA program. They all started off as co-hosts for the telethon.

Other
celebrities who have helped out at the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day
Telethon over the years were Casey Kasem, Elayne Boosler, Leeza
Gibbons, John Tesh, Larry King, Tony Orlando, Marilyn McCoo, and
Billy Gilmer.

But
of course, you couldn't have a telethon without an announcer or
co-host. For the first few years of the telethon, game show
announcer Johnny Olson (best known as the original announcer of “The
Price is Right” until 1985) was the announcer/co-host. But in the
early 1970s, Ed McMahon took over as permanent co-host. The kinship
between Ed and Jerry was legendary, and their chemistry together was
absolutely remarkable. McMahon would hold this position for
thirty-five years until his death in June 2009.

Of
course, the main goal of the telethon was to raise awareness for
muscular dystrophy. Every year, the MDA would name an MDA Goodwill
Ambassador (a child usually between the ages of four and sixteen that
had some form of muscular dystrophy). They were also known as
“Jerry's Kids” because Jerry Lewis would often become emotional
and inspired by their stories of survival, as well as laughing along
with them at the positive attitudes that these children had even
though they were battling a serious disease.

Seriously,
guys...we could all learn something from those kids.

In
fact, if you click HERE, you can watch a montage of some of the most
memorable of these MDA Goodwill Ambassadors. Perhaps one of the most
well-known kids of recent years was one Mattie Stepanek, a young boy
who suffered from dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, and who lost
all of his siblings to the disease as well, but didn't let that stop
him from publishing five books of poetry and one book of essays –
one of which made the New York Times best sellers' list! Sadly, the
disease took Mattie's life in June 2004 at the age of thirteen. But
in those thirteen years, Mattie Stepanek changed the world...one poem
at a time.

I
think that's why the show was a huge success. Some people may say
that the MDA and Jerry Lewis exploited these children, but I never
saw it that way at all. I think if anything, watching the positivity
and the fight in these kids to keep living while searching for a
cure...that was inspiring. And, I suppose looking at it from
perspective, it makes having a tough day at work, or spilling your
coffee on your new outfit, or missing the bus seem a little bit
insignificant.

Jerry
Lewis may not host the show anymore, and the telethon is definitely
not like it used to be. But the fact remains that over the last
forty-seven years, the telethon has generated a total of over two
BILLION dollars. And although a cure still has not been found as of
yet, the money raised for the organization has ensured that people
who are diagnosed with the disease have more treatment options
available to prolong lives, as well as testing experimental new
treatments that could help erase muscular dystrophy from the world
forever. That makes a huge difference.

So,
to conclude this entry...let's have a look at a few of the more
memorable moments of the telethon.

Let's
start with 1987, which is probably the earliest telethon that I can
remember watching. Could you imagine Mr. T being in the same room as
Sammy Davis Jr.? It happened! Take a look!

Or,
how about 1981, when Frank Sinatra stole the show with his
performance of “I've Got the World on a String”?

Or,
how about this epic moment also featuring Frank Sinatra that included
a special guest from Jerry Lewis' past at the 1976 telethon? It
remains the most talked about moment of the telethon's entire
history. Just watch it and see what I mean.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Okay, I promise...this
will be the final diary entry this week. I know I've done a lot of
them this week, but I had a lot of things on my mind. But
fortunately, things are getting back to some degree of normalcy, and
all is starting to feel good.

So, I thought that for
this edition of the Thursday Diary, I would be a little bit snarky.
A little bit sarcastic. And, maybe for good measure, a little bit of
lamenting over how times have changed...and not necessarily in a good
way.

August
29, 2013

I
remember at one time I really used to love watching the MTV Video
Music Awards. And, for that matter, the Grammy Awards, the MuchMusic
Video Awards, or any other award having to do with music.

Throughout
my entire life, I've always been surrounded by music, and I couldn't
imagine my life without it. Why wouldn't I want to watch some of the
biggest celebrations in the music industry?

I
honestly don't remember what my very first Grammy Awards ceremony
was. I think it must have been around 1989 or 1990. Coincidentally,
I thought 1989 was a decent year in music and would often listen to
Top 40 radio around the third grade, so it kind of fits with the
timeline.

I
think that I started watching the MTV Video Music Awards right around
the same time...maybe I was a couple of years older. Although we
didn't get MTV here in Canada, the MTV Video Music Awards would often
be either simulcast on MuchMusic, or it would air about a week later.
To me, the MTV Video Music Awards were the quintessential awards
show to watch to not only celebrate the best of the best in music
video, but to see singers and bands reveal themselves to their fans
in more ways than ever before.

And,
certainly there were some awesome moments over the show's twenty-nine
year history. The late Whitney Houston helped break down colour
barriers on MTV, and when the third annual MTV Video Music Awards
aired on September 5, 1986, the world saw Whitney demonstrate her
vocal talents in this performance.

Or
how about three years after that when on September 6, 1989, Paula
Abdul showed the world that there actually was a time before she
became American Idol's “nice judge”? Watch it below.

And,
since today would have been his fifty-fifth birthday, how about a
spotlight on Michael Jackson, whose performance at the 1995 MTV Video
Music Awards was fifteen minutes in length and was voted as the Best
VMA Pop Performance in the show's history? Watch it below if you
have the time to do so. It's phenomenal.

So,
where am I going with this?

Well,
in the case of Whitney Houston, Paula Abdul, and Michael
Jackson...they really didn't need a whole bunch of gimmicks and fancy
bells and whistles to showcase the immense talent they had. Mind
you, two of them have since passed away, and the third one is
currently designing jewelry for Avon campaigns. But back in their
heyday, they were considered the crème of the crop. The sauce on
the steak. The ice in your slushie. They actually had the talent to
back up their accolades.

I'm
not necessarily saying that the music artists of today aren't like
that. I'm sure that there are a lot of people out there who could
wow us with their talents alone and come up with VMA performances
that could rival, or even surpass those of Houston, Abdul, or
Jackson.

So,
imagine my surprise when I tuned into the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards
which aired this past Sunday, and this was the clip that had
everybody talking.

I
know that by now, it's old news. But you know what? I feel a need
to comment on this performance because it's just so all over the
place.

Okay,
Miley Cyrus. I get what you were trying to do here. You want to
break free from your father's “achy breaky hold” on you, and
start up your own career. You don't want to be associated with the
squeaky clean “Hannah Montana” image anymore. I get that.
You're nearly twenty-one, you have your own ideas as to where you
want your career to go, and you must be happy to have a huge hit with
your latest single “We Can't Stop”. But, you know what? I have
to point my finger at you...and when I say finger, I don't mean the
foam finger that you were...well, you know what, I don't even know
what you were doing with that thing.

The
problem with Miley Cyrus' performance is that if she was expecting
for people to take her seriously...well, it kind of backfired in a
big way. Everyone I know who saw the performance was fairly
disgusted. One even commented that Miley did things with Robin
Thicke that Robin Thicke's own wife hadn't done with him.

Ouch.

Miley,
let's talk. The thing about that performance is that when it comes
to what you were trying to do, I sort of get where you're coming
from. You want to carve your own identity and you want your own
independence. You just went about it the wrong way, in my opinion.
Instead of getting respect, though, you're the punchline for late
night talk show hosts this week.

Of
course, these are just my own thoughts. You can feel free to agree
or disagree with me if you so choose. But the truth is that this
performance has so many points of view that there really is no
clear-cut answer. The facts of the story appear as blurred lines
running into each other, open for interpretation.

(Get
it? Blurred lines?)

Anyway,
regardless of what your stance is, it's gotten people talking about
it. Certainly the story was enough for me to comment on it myself.
And maybe in some grand scheme of things, Miley set out to achieve
exactly that...create a moment that would get people talking no
matter how positive or negative a reaction she got. After all,
controversy sells and it keeps your name in print. And, apparently
thanks to that performance, I now know what it means to “twerk”.

(Never
thought I would be writing the word “twerk” in this blog.)

I
just wish that Miley would realize that she didn't have to go down
that route to be a respected musical artist. She was doing a good
enough job already. I actually admit to liking “The Climb”, and
“Party in the U.S.A.” was a fairly decent pop hit in the summer
of 2009.

But,
you know...Miley's certainly not going to be the last artist to be
controversial at the MTV Video Music Awards. She most certainly
wasn't the first!

It
seems to be synonymous with the MTV Video Music Awards, you know?
For as long as I can remember, that awards show was the place to go
if you wanted to stand out, and perform outrageous routines in
outrageous costumes, and do generally outrageous things that would
make the six o'clock news the following day.

For
instance, nobody remembers September 11, 1987, when Peter Gabriel set
a record for most MTV Video Music Awards won on a single night with
ten for his “Sledgehammer” video. But, I bet everyone remembers
what happened two years later when Andrew Dice Clay earned himself a
lifetime ban from the network for reading off some rather vulgar
poems. I don't have that clip, but it kind of went like this (some language may be NSFW, so be warned).

Come
to think of it, many people would consider 1989 a real turning point
for the awards show. It had so many controversial moments aside from
the Dice Clay scandal. It was the awards show that saw Izzy Stradlin
and Vince Neil get into a physical altercation during the show! And,
again, it wouldn't be the first time that this happened. Bret
Michaels and C.C. DeVille got into a famous battle royale at the 1991
MTV Video Music Awards. RuPaul and Milton Berle (what an odd
combination) did a little verbal sparring two years later at the same
awards ceremony. Van Halen had the shortest reunion in history when
just minutes after the band's original line-up took to the stage
briefly at the 1996 VMA's, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen came to
blows.

And,
who could forget the Kanye West/Taylor Swift debacle after Beyonce
supposedly had the best video of all time, and Kanye decided to use
Taylor's acceptance speech time to tell the world exactly why.

Well,
Beyonce proved to be a class act by giving up her time to let Taylor
Swift finish her speech, Taylor Swift's latest album “Red” has
been considered a crossover success, and Kanye West is trapped in the
Kardashian family with a child they named “North West”.

Yeah...karma
has a funny way of showing its face, doesn't it?

And
just going on a performance level, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke
weren't the only ones to have a rather...um...raunchy performance.
You might think that the September 6, 1990 performance of Madonna's
“Vogue” was quite tame in comparison to Miley's, but watch the
performance a little closer. You'll see some bust grabbing, skirt
peering, and other taboo acts within it. Of course, all of the
dancers were in Victorian-era garb, so nothing was really revealed.
Again, quite tame.

Then
we had Prince one year later, whose outfit during his September 5,
1991 performance lead very little to the imagination – well, at
least the back part of the costume anyway. But, let's be honest.
This is Prince we're talking about here – a man who's written some
of the raunchiest songs over the last thirty years. We've come to
expect things like this from him.

And
on September 6, 2001, the world learned that Britney Spears was up
for shock value when her performance of “I'm A Slave 4 U”
featured some special guests – in the form of a gigantic Burmese
python and a tiger in a cage. The performance was called out by PETA
who claimed that the animals were being mistreated, but it was just a
blip on the controversy level for Britney Spears. Besides, in 2003,
she kissed Madonna and in 2007, she had her meltdown which lead to a
rather lukewarm performance of “Gimme More”.

Come
to think of it, I seem to recall Britney's performance getting
panned, and people making fun of her. But considering the fact that
she had a nervous breakdown where she shaved her head and lost her
mind, I thought it was brave of her to perform on the awards show.
She clearly wasn't ready to take the stage on that day, but I give
her credit for trying. And it seems as though the pain (albeit
self-inflicted) she was enduring six years ago has been left in the
past, as Britney's experiencing a comeback of sorts.

Perhaps
Miley Cyrus will learn something from this experience. Perhaps not.
The thing is that what's done is done. It will forever be a footnote
in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards. My hope though is that
one day there will come a time in which the MTV Video Music Awards
aren't about how much controversy you can raise, but how much musical
talent you really have.

But
as I type this, I fear that there are artists out there who have seen
Miley's performance, and who want to one-up her in the shocking
behaviour department.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

I think that it is a safe bet to say that this past week in "A Pop Culture Addict's Guide To Life" has been rather unpredictable. There was no Monday Matinee, a lot of emotional baggage that I had to deal with, and the knowledge that maybe things aren't as dire as I initially thought.In fact, I was so preoccupied with everything that has been going on that I completely forgot to ask people for requests this week.So, I thought that I would use this space for another diary entry. After all, this whole week has started off on a bizarre note. May as well keep the momentum going.

August
28, 2013

Okay, so first things first, I want to wish my parents a happy 48th wedding anniversary. Forty-eight years is certainly a huge accomplishment. Some celebrity marriages don't even last forty-eight weeks! So, congratulations to both of them!

Now, as I look at my calendar, the date reads August 28. I imagine that some of you kids are already back at school for another year (and probably loathing every piece of homework you have to bring home to complete at that). But here in Ontario, Canada, school doesn't start for a few days yet. September 3 is the date that everybody goes back to school for another year.

You hear that kids? You have less than a week left of your freedom from pencils, books, and all those teachers dirty looks.

Now, I'll be completely honest with all of you. I had very mixed emotions about the first day of school.

In some ways, I hated it because I would be going to school with a brand new teacher who I did not know. I also didn't know who was all going to be in my class until September, which prompted some anxiety (especially if I happened to be in a class with some of my worst tormentors, as was the case with seventh grade).

But there was always something good about going back to school. Going out to shop for school supplies.

And, yes, I see you looking at me with blank faces. How can shopping for back to school supplies be considered fun?

Well, for me, it was.

Okay, maybe not every aspect of back-to-school shopping was all that much fun. I hated shopping for back-to-school clothes because I was not slim enough or had the money to wear the coolest styles. And shoe shopping was absolutely frustrating as I could never find the right shoe to fit me (a problem which unfortunately has followed me into adulthood).

But shopping for school supplies? That part was fun.

Whenever my family would take me to the back-to-school section at Giant Tiger, Woolco, or even an office supply store, I was absolutely on cloud nine.

But then, you also have to consider that when I was younger, I didn't really play with toys all that much (aside from video games). I was just as content with a bundle of loose-leaf paper and a box of crayons to keep me amused. Who needed the latest toys when your imagination was all you needed?

Let the kids compete against each other to see who had the best back-to-school look. I was more concerned about having the highest quality school supplies. And, for your viewing pleasure, I have compiled my own list of must haves for my own back-to-school experiences.

Most of them met the guidelines of the school rules. A couple of them blatantly broke those same rules. But I didn't care. I just used them when the teacher's back was turned.

Okay, so here's the list.

1. 400 SHEET PACKS OF LINED PAPER

I know that when I was in school, we were provided 80-page notebooks for us to do our schoolwork in, but let's face it. When you needed to do homework assignments, sometimes it was better to show your work on a separate piece of paper. And, besides, it's not as if I had to specifically buy loose leaf paper for back-to-school. We always had it in the house. I think I once went through an entire ream of paper in the course of a week because I was always drawing pictures and writing things down.

2. PENCIL CRAYONS (specifically Laurentien brand)

This one makes me mist up a bit because over the last couple of years, Laurentien pencil crayons have been discontinued. It seems as though Crayola now has the monopoly on the coloured pencil market - which stinks because I always saw Crayola pencil crayons as inferior to Laurentien. Luckily for me, I have several Laurentien pencil crayons kicking around that I can use whenever I want. I always did like Laurentien coloured pencils best because the colours were always bold, and they came in 12, 24, and even 60 count packages. And what made Laurentien pencil crayons unique was that each coloured pencil was numbered, so you didn't even have to know the colours to know which one you needed. You could ask someone to hand you pencil #5, and it would be the orchid purple one, or #18 would be blush pink, or #39 would be ocean blue.

(And yes, I memorized all the colours with their respective numbers up to the number 45. After that number, the colours kept changing, and I lost track of what the old colours and new colours were.)

3 - MARKERS

Now, I know that I dissed Crayola pencil crayons just a few sentences ago, but if you are looking for markers, Crayola markers were always the go-to choice. And, in almost every year that I was in elementary school, I remember always using Crayola brand markers in my schoolwork.

(The lone exception was in second grade, when I used those special colour-changing Raccoons markers.)

But seriously, an eight pack of Crayola markers was basically all you needed. The colours were big and bright, and lasted a long time.

Of course, when I grew older, I started to develop a love for those Mr. Sketch markers, which were fruit-scented. I think that the licorice black marker was enough to make anyone permanently high if they inhaled the fumes long enough. And, one thing about Mr. Sketch markers was that they lasted on average four times as long as the Crayola ones. I bought a 12-pack of Mr. Sketch markers ten years ago, and at least half of the colours still write as well as they did ten years earlier!

4 - GLUE

Okay, so this was one of the things that was considered a huge no-no by my school. The school, after all, provided us with glue and we didn't need to bring any in.

But come on. The stuff the school provided us was that brown sludge known as mucilage. That stuff didn't keep ANYTHING stuck on a piece of paper for long. On construction paper, it was absolutely useless. So, I always snuck in a couple of glue sticks in my school backpack to use whenever we had art class. And, none of the teachers were ever the wiser, either. Of course, I did have to deal with the students always wanting to borrow my glue stick, and they never returned it. I think one year, I went through ten of them.

5 - PENCILS

Yeah, the school always provided us with pencils whenever we needed them. And given how many pencils that I went through over the course of a given year, it was always a good thing to know that teachers often had entire cases of them whenever we ended up losing ours. Though, I will be completely honest. Some teachers were overly stingy with their school supplies...such as the case of my first grade teacher who refused to pony up a green crayon for me when I only had seven to use.

But I will state this. I didn't particularly care for the pencils that our school provided for us. They must have been made of the cheapest wood possible because whenever we ended up breaking the pencil lead and we had to sharpen them using the pencil sharpener inside the room, the pencil sharpener would eat three-quarters of our pencil before giving us the desired point we wanted. So frustrating.

Eventually, I gave up on sharpening pencils altogether and bought some of those BiC mechanical pencils. With just a click of a button, I could "sharpen" my pencil with ease.

6 - CRAYONSNow, for crayons, I actually liked using Crayola the best. And, I remember using them back when they had the original colours. I bet most of you reading this won't know the joy of using such colours as cadet blue, raw umber, and maize, but I will always forever have those memories. We certainly never had a macaroni and cheese crayon. And, seriously...who came up with the colour name macaroni and cheese anyway? I mean, it's a lovely colour and one that I like a lot, but it's just so random a name. What next? The bleu cheese crayon?7 - PENSThis was another forbidden thing for me to use until about grade seven...and even then, I always cheated. When I was in elementary school, we could never use pens for our schoolwork. All of our work had to be done in pencils. I suppose that made sense. After all, what teacher wants to read an essay with pen splotches all over it. By the time we reached seventh grade, we were allowed to use pens...as long as they were in blue or black.

And, well...I never quite followed that rule. I never really followed the crowd in school, and I purposely used colours that were unlike anyone else's, just so the teacher knew that I did my homework. I used royal purple, turquoise blue, and deep green inks on my assignments. And, you know what? I never did get penalized for it. They probably didn't like it much, but they weren't going to give me a zero for it.Perhaps this contributed to the fact that I rarely ever use black ball-point pens, if at all. Unless I have no choice, I'll stick to my unusual colours, thanks.And, well...that's my list of back-to-school must haves. What are some of yours?

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Before I go ahead with
today's Tuesday Timeline, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you
for allowing me the opportunity to finally talk about long-buried
issues that I have had all this time, and for offering support in the
current situation that I am in.

It was really hard for me
to come to terms with everything...and it makes me sad to conclude
that at this time, there is nothing more that I can do except pick
myself up, dust myself off, and continue living my life with people
who actually want to be a part of it. I will not allow myself to be
treated like an afterthought any longer.

I guess the hardest part
about this is admitting everything and putting it out in the open.
As I explained yesterday, this was the most candid that I have ever
been in this blog. It wasn't my intention to purposely hurt anybody
with my comments – more like a way to try and process everything
that happened, and trying to understand why I'm suddenly public enemy
number one to those who are supposed to be closest to me. I don't
understand the reasoning behind it, and as long as I live, I honestly
don't think that I will ever understand it.

The only thing that has
been made crystal clear is that maybe this is the time in which I
need to start giving myself a little bit of TLC...and I don't mean
that group who had several top 10 singles between 1992 and 2000
either.

I'm tired of having
relationships with people who only stick around when they want
something and then once I give it to them they disappear into the
night until the next time they need something. I'm at the point
right now where I will not put up with it any longer. I need people
in my life who will be there as friends in any type of weather...not
just fair weather. And maybe that means that I have to make some
serious decisions over who I spend my time with. Time is so
precious. Why waste it on those who don't matter?

In fact, I'm just going to
leave you with one thought, courtesy of a long-time reader and friend
of the blog. “Family doesn't have to just include those who are
blood-related.”

I think that's something
that I really need to hold on to as I proceed with the rest of my
life. And while there is always the possibility that things will
eventually blow over...I can't guarantee it. So, that's why I need
to do the only thing I can do and just start focusing on what I want
out of life, and to stop living for other people.

And now, the events of
August 27.

410
– The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days

1776
– British forces under the command of General William Howe defeats
Americans under General George Washington in the Battle of Long
Island

1813
– Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians,
Prussians, and Russians at the Battle of Dresden

1832
– Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe, surrenders to U.S.
Authorities, which ends the Black Hawk War

1859
– Petroleum is discovered in the community of Titusville,
Pennsylvania which leads to the discovery of the world's first
commercially successful oil well

1916
– Romania declares war against Austria-Hungary

1927
– Five women from Canada file a petition to the Supreme Court of
Canada asking “Does the word persons in Section 24 of the
British North American Act, 1867, include female persons?”

1928
– The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by the first
fifteen nations to do so

So,
the date is August 27. But what year will we be visiting this time
around?

How
about we go back in time twenty-three years to August 27,
1990?

I
actually somewhat remember August 27, 1990. I was nine years old and
was about to enter the fourth grade in school. In all likelihood, I
was probably at the mall with my mom shopping for back to school
supplies which included a neon coloured pencil case, a pair of UHU
Glue Sticks, and Laurentian brand pencil crayons (which sadly are now
a defunct brand). And it was also the day before my parents
celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, which was kind of
cool. The plaque that they received from the mayor of our city at
the time celebrating the milestone still hangs on their wall today.
Hard to believe that in a couple of years, they will be celebrating
anniversary number fifty! That makes me (and them) feel real old
now!

Sadly,
August 27, 1990 was a day that was very tragic in the world of music
history. That was the day that the world lost a talented blues
guitarist and singer in a devastating helicopter accident.

Hours before the crash occurred, this performer and his band had just finished performing at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, and their next destination was Chicago, Illinois. The helicopters - four of them - were waiting for him and his band members and the helicopters took off as scheduled despite the fact that the visibility wasn't exactly the greatest. According to witnesses who were there at the time, the conditions were foggy and hazy. Certainly not the most ideal conditions to go up in the air with a helicopter.

And yet the helicopters took off as planned, and the pilots were instructed to fly over a hill that was over a thousand feet in altitude (during the winter months, it was used for skiing).

The helicopters departed just before one in the morning on August 27, 1990 from an elevation of approximately 850 feet. The pilot, Jeff Brown, was instructed to pilot the helicopter to Meigs Field.

They never made it.

The helicopter smashed into the side of the mountain, killing everybody on board. It wasn't until four-thirty in the morning until Civil Air Patrol was notified of the accident, and it took another three hours before they could reach the site of the crash. The bodies of everybody on board were nearly impossible to identify. Believe it or not, it took musician Eric Clapton, and Jimmie Vaughan to identify the body of Jimmie's brother...a man who he had just recorded an album with earlier that year.

In addition to Jeff Brown, the other victims of the crash were Bobby Brooks, Nigel Browne, Colin Smythe...

...and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The death of Stevie Ray Vaughan was a tragic shock to his fans and family members. He died at just thirty-five years old at a time in which his music was at its peak. He was the founder of his band, "Double Trouble", and together, he made beautiful music that blended soulful blues with rock music, and his skill with a guitar was almost legendary.

It should not have ended this way.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was born on October 3, 1954 in Dallas, Texas. He was the second son of "Big Jim" and Martha Vaughan, a younger brother for Jimmie, who was born three years earlier in 1951. And, it became clear at an early age that Stevie Ray Vaughan was destined to become a musical genius. After trying his hand playing the saxophone and drums, Stevie Ray Vaughan received his very first guitar on October 3, 1961 - his seventh birthday.

Mind you, it wasn't your typical guitar. It was a toy guitar that came from Sears. But still, it was good enough for Vaughan, who taught himself how to play the songs "Wine, Wine, Wine" and "Thunderbird" - two songs by The Nightbirds. Ironically enough, Vaughan had absolutely no interest in doing any formal training. Instead, he learned how to play guitar through a more kinesthetic/auditory approach. Listening to his brother's records by Muddy Waters and B.B. King, he managed to learn and duplicate the guitar chords and solos that he heard from the album. He would later purchase an album by Lonnie Mack, which also helped him perfect his craft, as did Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze". Even though his childhood was not exactly the most pleasant (his father was a violent drunk, and he had very few friends), he found a way to get through it through music.

In 1965, when Vaughan was just ten, he founded his first band, "The Chantones", and his first public performance was held that June at a talent show. But even though Vaughan liked performing, his parents didn't quite support his career aspirations, and he ended up taking on a job as a dishwasher where he made seventy cents an hour. He would later quit that job following a near mishap with a barrel of hot grease, and would make the decision to focus on music full time.

After dropping out of high school when he was sixteen, Stevie Ray followed his older brother to Austin, Texas on the final day of 1971, and began engrossing himself with the music scene there. During the 1970s, he was a party of several bands. He was a member of Krackerjack (formerly known as Bluebird), Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers, Paul Ray and the Cobras, and Triple Threat Revue.

And it was at the tail end of the 1970s that Vaughan would form the line-up of his most successful band - Double Trouble. The group had a revolving door of musicians coming and going, but one could argue that the band line-up that most people would consider to be the most recognizable was that of Vaughan, drummer Chris Layton, bassist Tommy Shannon, and keyboardist Reese Wynans.

As the seventies morphed into the eighties, Double Trouble started off slowly. They meticulously started building a fan base, and by 1983 they were starting to get the attention of various record producers and singers.

Including David Bowie.

I'm not sure if you all knew this or not, but Stevie Ray Vaughan was a huge part of David Bowie's 1983 album "Let's Dance". He played lead guitar on several of the album's singles including the title track, which you can hear below.

This song reached the top of the charts in May 1983, might I add. A huge achievement for Stevie Ray Vaughan, even though all he did on the single was play that awesome guitar solo midway through the song. Vaughan was even asked to go on tour with David Bowie to promote the album, but on the urging of Vaughan's management team, he declined.

Instead, he decided to focus on releasing material himself. In June of 1983, Vaughan released his debut album with Double Trouble, "Texas Flood", which spawned the singles "Pride and Joy", and "Love Struck Baby". Soon after, the band opened up for The Moody Blues, and landed a guest appearance on the television show "Austin City Limits", where he performed along with his brother's band, "The Fabulous Thunderbirds". It would just be the first of many appearances by Vaughan. Just have a look at one of Stevie's performances.

Their follow-up album, "Couldn't Stand The Weather" was accompanied by music videos that soon received a lot of airplay on MTV. The band had also received a couple of Grammy nominations in 1984 for "Texas Flood".However, there were some barriers that Stevie Ray Vaughan had to overcome over the years. One was a serious case of stage fright. He was incredibly nervous playing in front of large crowds, and many people noted that he would always be sweating a lot during performances, and that he had absolutely zero self-confidence on stage. However, by the mid-1980s, he had seemingly found his groove.And then there was Stevie's addiction to drugs and alcohol, which seemed to spin out of control right around the time that the band released their 1985 album "Soul to Soul". His contract for performances always called for two-fifths Crown Royal and one-fifth Scotch.He also developed a cocaine habit while Double Trouble toured. It started off being a casual routine, but quickly developed into absolutely dependency. At one point, Stevie's cocaine use was so out of control that he once dissolved some cocaine into a glass of alcohol and cause serious damage to his stomach lining. The event that seemed to shock Stevie back to reality took place in Ludwigshafen, Germany, when he tried to get up and threw up over himself, realizing that he was covered with blood at the same time.It was enough of a scare for Vaughan to quit drugs and alcohol altogether. And after completing treatment in a rehabilitation centre, he would become one hundred per cent sober by 1987, and remained that way for the rest of his life.

In his last few years, Vaughan was determined to make up for all of the time he lost due to his addiction to drugs and alcohol. Double Trouble returned to the recording studios to record the 1989 album, "In Step", which proved to be the band's best effort yet. And this song was a huge part of that success.

ARTIST: Stevie Ray Vaughan

SONG: Crossfire

ALBUM: In Step

DATE RELEASED: June 1989

PEAK POSITION ON THE MAINSTREAM ROCK CHARTS: #1

Stevie's personal life was also thriving. After his marriage broke-up, he began dating Janna Lapidus, a Russian-born model whom Stevie had met back in 1986. She visited him while he was recovering from his drug abuse, and at the time of Stevie's death, they were still together. He had also recorded an album with his brother Jimmie Vaughan entitled "Family Style", which was released a month after Stevie's death, in September 1990. But perhaps the one thing that Stevie was most proud of was his new found sobriety. He attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in January 1990, which has since been transcribed and posted on the Internet (you can hear a portion of it if you click HERE). He continued to make healthy living a priority in his life, and I imagine that had he lived, we would have seen him do so much more with his life.

At the very least though, if there's any sort of consolation regarding his death, it is that he spent his last few days doing what he loved. The day before his death, August 26, 1990, Double Trouble was on tour with Eric Clapton as his opening act, and one of the final moments of the August 26 show involved both Vaughan brothers, Clapton, Robert Cray, and Buddy Guy performing a jam-session to "Sweet Home Chicago". And perhaps this excerpt from Double Trouble band member Chris Layton would best describe how Stevie Ray Vaughan was feeling just hours before that fatal helicopter ride.

"The conversation was actually very light; there was nothing heavy in it. It was just like, 'this is a great coupla nights and wasn't it great to be here,' and talked about the record that he and Jimmie just made, how they had a lot of fun and that was exciting. He was looking forward to that coming out and looking forward to us making another record. He was in great spirits. I mean, we just had two great nights and we talked about all kinds of stuff, talked about the son that my wife and I were getting ready to have–we didn't know it was a boy–but just anything and everything. We talked for, I guess, almost 30 minutes.

Then he got up and said, 'I'm gonna go back down to the dressing room for a minute.' I don't know, maybe five minutes or so later, he came back up and he had his jacket on, he had his bags. He was making this turn, and I said, 'Hey, what are you doin'?' And he said, 'I'm gonna go back to Chicago.' I said 'Well, now?' And he said, 'Yeah, I gotta get back. I want to call Janna,' his girlfriend, in New York. I thought, 'Jeez, you could actually call her anywhere and then call her later,' but he turned around and said, 'Call me when you get back. I love you,' and kinda gave me that wink of the eye he would do. And then he was gone. He just disappeared into the night."